Director Edgar Wright explained why he has no interest in making a sequel to Shaun of the Dead, the hit 2004 zombie comedy that kickstarted his film career.
"I haven't gone back to horror-comedy, because with Shaun Of The Dead I felt like I had said much of what I wanted to say with that movie," Wright said in an interview with SFX Magazine. "It's difficult to return to that, even as a producer. Sometimes I get sent films -- people want to make the next Shaun and want me to come aboard as a producer. But I find it difficult to cover the same territory again."
In addition to not wanting to rehash old material, Wright said revisiting Shaun of the Dead would be a major time commitment. "The thing is that films take so long to make. I think that's the thing that fans don't quite understand sometimes," the filmmaker said. "They'll say, 'Why don't you knock out a Shaun sequel?' It's like, these films take three years to make, you've got to really, really love it to do it. So because films take longer to make, trying to challenge yourself with a different subject matter or something you haven't done before, it's always the real motivator."
Shaun of the Dead was the first film in what became known as the "Cornetto Trilogy," which also included the 2007 action-comedy Hot Fuzz and the 2013 sci-fi comedy The World’' End. All three films starred Simon Pegg and Nick Frost.
Pegg discussed the prospect of a Shaun of the Dead sequel back in 2017, but he admitted no one involved in the film ever gave it serious thought. "I jokingly wrote a treatment for From Dusk Till Shaun, which was a sequel to Shaun of the Dead," Pegg said at the time. "It was all about Shaun and Ed having to go up to Edinburgh, or something. I don't know. It was ridiculous. And it was a joke. It wasn't like a serious pitch. Edgar thought it would be funny to do the film again, but with vampires." Pegg added that the idea was "entertained for all of like 72 hours" before everyone moved on.
Wright, however, seems enthusiastic about making a sequel to his 2017 action-comedy Baby Driver, revealing in 2019 that he completed a first draft of the script. Wright's next film, Last Night in Soho, serves as a more authentic take on the horror genre -- albeit one that reportedly includes a twisty time-traveling plot. The film, which stars Thomasin McKenzie, Anya Taylor-Joy and Matt Smith, hits theaters Oct. 29.
Source: SFX Magazine